This post has been inspired by a Facebook conversation following a status update by a former colleague who is now an SNP councillor.
It all started innocuously enough with the following comment:
Interlocutor 1: So Nick Cleg [sic] has been left in charge... Does anybody else feel just that little bit scared!
No, I thought to myself, no I don't. In fact, I'm rather pleased at the plans to raise the profile of Liberal Democrat principles and policies, something I specifically mentioned a new members survey I completed at the weekend. So I responded in kind:
Me: Not as scared as when I visit home and realise Alex Salmond is in charge.
And because I couldn't let it lie, like any good Pedant would, I added:
Me: Oh and it's Clegg with two g's. :-)
At this point, my interlocutor decided to switch his attack from personality in order to question the legitimacy of the coalition:
Interlocutor 1: Ah but you see, Andrew, the general public actually elected Alex Salmond and he won the largest share of the vote in an election... Regardless of how many G's, Clegg didn't and his crazy ideas were rejected.
Ah, so that was it - an attack on the arrangement that brought stable government to the UK in the face of soaring debt levels. An attack on the coalition deal that cut out the Labour party, Plaid Cymru and the SNP and denied them the "rainbow coalition" mooted by, amongst others, Alex Salmond.
How to respond?, that was the question. Well, it struck me that the situation in Holyrood wasn't actually all that different to Westminster:
Me: Ehm... When last I checked Alex Salmond was leading a minority government...
...and in both cases the public elects a parliament not a government. There is no difference in the legitimacy of the arrangement at Westminster to the arrangement at Holyrood.
Indeed, it could be argued that the government at Westminster is more representative, given that 59.1% of the population voted for one of the parties. In Scotland the SNP govern on a mandate of a 32.9% share of the electorate. While this is absolutely legitimate under the Holyrood system - as would a minority Conservative government at Westminster - it does seem to be weak territory to stand on and question the legitimacy of other solutions to, essentially, the same problem. And of course, following the 2007 election, the SNP had also held coalition talks!
I think my interlocutor had taken my point and that could well have been the end of the political banter which had lightened my lunch break. A little later, however, a third person - let's call them Interlocutor 2 - entered the conversation.
Interlocutor 2: The legitimacy in Scotland is apparent when you consider the overwhelming majority of Scots voted for neither the Tories or the Lib Dems in May, giving neither party a mandate to govern in Scotland. The SNP Government may be a minority one but at least we actually received votes in Scotland!
At this point, I repaired to the BBC's election 2010 site to check the figures. A quick fact check later suggested the figures weren't as cut and dried as all that, particularly with reference to the SNP:
Me: Ehm, the SNP received just 1% more of the vote in Scotland in May and 5 fewer MPs than the LibDems, so the mandate was not clear in May - the mandate, such as it is, dates back to the last Scottish Parliament elections.
Furthermore, the combined share of the vote of the Lib Dems and Tories in Scotland was actually 35.6% compared with the 19.9% achieved by the SNP.
I come back to my previous point - within the terms of their respective parliaments, both the Westminster and Holyrood governments are legitimate - and in the case of Westminster that is as true in Edinburgh and Cardiff as London.
So it seems that in May, the coalition parties in Scotland trumped the SNP in both seats and vote share. It could also be noted that this 35.6% share of the vote figure remarkable similar to the 32.9% share that the SNP feel gives them a mandate at Holyrood.
Of course, on one level, none of this matters - it was all a bit of banter amongst friends. On another it very much does. The SNP will play this card again and again next year at the Scottish Parliament elections and in 2015 during the Westminster campaign. They will do their best to make the allegation stick. The Scottish Liberal Democrats will need to be prepared to fight it. At least the facts are on their side.
Andrew
P.S. Twenty years ago this would have all have mattered much more, of course. The advent of devolution, albeit in rather imperfect form, means that such arguments are redundant.
